Author Topic: HP 53131 Option 030 BG7TBL 8Gb Clone Brd - Repair  (Read 1241 times)

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Offline B1naryTopic starter

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HP 53131 Option 030 BG7TBL 8Gb Clone Brd - Repair
« on: November 08, 2017, 06:45:57 pm »
I am new at this but I'm going to try to repair this board - to learn something if nothing else.
The 8Ghz board was used once. The next time I needed to use it. It was dead. Some things I've noticed - it is not very sensitive and requires a pretty good signal to trigger (at least -10dBm). I used a LCR meter to measure the components in circuit and an RF probe to try to trace the RF Signal generator test signal from the SMA connector through to various components but I don’t have a schematic and the seller off eBay refused to provide any information on this board that would help. I am probably doing something wrong but I don't have enough knowledge to know what it is. I will list the readings I got in hope someone will have the patience to help me through this. I’ve set the RF Gen to 0dBm, 500MHz and connected it to the SMA input of the option board. As noted, I bought an RF Probe (a suggestion from a user on the board) and would like to know a few steps and reading I should expect using the probe. The HMC362S-8G chip has 5V on pins 1, 3, and 4. The pin-out says this is right. Pin 5 is the input from the SMA connector. Using the RF Probe and with an input of of 0dBm I get a 30mV reading on pin 5. I get 3.2mV on pin 1, 3.2mV on pin 3 and 4.3 mV on pin 7.

Based on these reading can someone tell me if the chip is good or bad. At least I'll have a place to start. I am brand new at this and should I post this in the beginners form?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

For what it is worth I sent a request to Analogue Devices asking if they could tell me how to determine of the Divider chip was good or not;

Here is the answer I got from "Ron".
"Here is a link to the Datasheet for the HMC362. We can not offer any additional support at this time".
BTW - the link was to the wrong data sheet :-(

Lesson, don't ask a manufacturer for help.

(Edit) I uploaded the HMC362 chip info. I hope this will make it easier for anyone who might offer a suggestion or two

C10-101.7pF, C15-.73K, C7-18.9uF, C8-18.9uF, C12-18.9uF, C21-18.9uF, C22-18.9uF, C5-18.9uF, C11-3.8nF, C17-3.6nF, C4-18.8uF, C6-18.8uF, R3-299R,R2-17.8R, C18-91.4nF, L3-0.2R, C3-18.8uF, L1-0.2R, C2-18.8uF, C20-18.8uF, R15-0.01R, R12-74.5R R4-74.2R, C19-18.8uF, C9-10.1uF, C1-10.1uF

Final Edit - in case anyone else has a problem with this board
After lots of testing (because I am new at this it took me a lot longer than someone with experience), I concluded the HMC362 S8 (4x) divider chip was bad. I replaced it and found the sensitivity of the board was vastly improved. As received I was lucky to get -10dBm to -15dBm for sensitivity. After the chip was replaced it is consistently -22dBm to -23dBM from 100MHz to 4.4GHz (highest my RF Gen will go)

« Last Edit: December 11, 2017, 03:51:55 pm by B1nary »
 


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